


Nuclear Genesis

by MadameBallBuster



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, F/M, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, joseph is a cock and in this essay i will--
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-05-10 02:55:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14728631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameBallBuster/pseuds/MadameBallBuster
Summary: "The old world was a carcass. They were maggots, dug in deep, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Joseph played the waiting game well."





	1. What Pride Wrought

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I guess this is how I'll cope with the ending.

The trembling of the earth had ceased days before, but Rook still felt the rhythm in the marrow of her bones. It followed her like a dream never ending- The smell of the ash. Scorched pine. The blaze. The flesh of the old world cracking and simmering underneath a scorching Montana sky.

She’d thought the roaring of the fires above were the most terrifying sounds she’d ever heard. That is, until they stopped. 

Because then there was only silence. 

The old world was a carcass. They were maggots, dug in deep, waiting. Waiting.

Waiting. 

Joseph played the waiting game well.

He hadn’t uttered a word since she’d woken, which Rook couldn’t identify as a blessing or a torment. On one hand, she didn’t know if she could stomach any more of his horseshit, his taunting, his patronizing, his scolding. 

But… it was eerie to watch him in his silence. At least if he was blathering, she could anticipate his next move. Mentally she might’ve prepared herself. After all, he’d never been shy about being upfront with her.

Now he just watched. Piercing, hollow eyes. It was another game they played. Any time one caught the other staring, their gazes would lock. An intense, yet entirely nonverbal exchange that neither seemed intent to shy away from. Intimate and treacherous. 

These mental bouts usually ended with Joseph breaking contact, glancing back down to a book in his hand or about the room at the faded posters and paintings. One might mistake this as him conceding the tiny power struggle. But both of them knew better.

Joseph was a persistence predator.

*************

“What are you going to do to me?” Rook finally asked on the second day, when the tremors were then distant hums in the earth.  
Joseph had been reading the contents of a manila folder- Dutch’s gathered information on his family. 

His finger gently traced a polaroid of his siblings standing together. Faith was as lovely as ever. John was posturing, his grin reaching his eyes for once. Jacob’s rugged face remained as still and as somber as stone. 

He let the silence between them settle on the air. 

“I’m going to tend to you.” He answered softly.

And tend he did. It started small- the destruction of the deputy’s pride. There was a monumental amount of it, seemingly a cornerstone of her very being. It was the first thing that had to go- the tilling of the soil. 

She could do nothing without him. He fed her, watered her, escorted her to the bathroom. The convincing to let him wash her took several days but eventually she relented, only because Joseph offered no alternative. 

Her eyes never even drifted near his during. She simply stared down into the water or to her hands, cuffed to the pipe in the wall. Her form was a pillar of strength and survival but even so, it wilted under Joseph’s calloused hand. Limbs curled close together, bastions of the body. Armor. 

“You have nothing to fear from me, child.” Joseph promised as he washed away the ash and soot, his touch never lingering too long on any patch of skin-except for the angry red scars of Wrath above her breast. It was an absentminded gesture, the pad of his thumb lightly tracing over John’s small legacy. 

Her shiver didn’t go unnoticed.

“When John was small, I used to do this for him, too.” Joseph murmured. “Our parents never looked after us, so Jacob taught me how to feed him, clean him. Just as he’d done for me when I was...” 

His eyes were distant.

“…I remember…”

Joseph’s voice tempered off into a hoarse exhale. Rook noted the white knuckle grip on the tub, how the muscles in his arm shuddered and writhed. She dared not move. Not now.

Eventually, Joseph reached up a tender hand to touch her forehead. Stroked her hair once, twice. Then he took her arm, guiding her to stand.  
He took to drying her, then had her slip on the large white tshirt he’d found in one of the dressers. It was a fitting look- fresh faced, white linens. Born anew. 

Gilded. 

Those eyes still burned into him. 

He envisioned what they might look like with less heat- soft, admiring. Beautiful.

He’d see it soon enough. 

_Love is patient._

***********

_Love is kind._

Every day was a new trial.

Rook could feel herself slipping away. Little by little, Joseph sought to carve her out, make a hollow vessel so that he could fill her. Another mindless, loving doll, a puppet, a pawn. 

First it was the reliance she was forced to place on him. Utterly stripped down to her basest of functions as he watched and coddled over her. 

Then it was the talking.

He never. Stopped. Talking.

Gentle, honeyed tones. Drifting, intruding. Sometimes it was directly to her, other times he spoke to himself.

Often times, he spoke clear out of his head. Perhaps, to the air. Perhaps to _someone else._

No matter how quietly he spoke, his voice always felt like it was right next to her ear. She could almost feel the warmth of his breath on her skin even when he was clear across the room. 

It addled her. Her mind ran in circles, trying to rid all senses of him and failing.  
He talked of himself, his life, his siblings, his visions, his dreams. The worst was when he preached. When he reminded her of who God had favored, who had won in the end.

_It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs._

She knew what he was doing. Rook knew how to profile, came with the job. She’d had him pegged from the beginning. She wondered if _he_ knew. Or if this was just the way he was wired, the way he really thought people ought to work. 

She supposed it didn’t matter. It was damaging her. 

Usually, she was quiet during these monologues. Hardly speaking unless addressed directly and even then only giving one word answers.  
One day, he said something. Something. Something completely asinine and pointless. Something about wheat? A harvest? 

Rook couldn’t even recall, just that it whatever it was caused a part inside of her to burst. She’d been split open, spilling out on the floor as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Anything, _anything_ to keep him from speaking a moment more. She kicked her legs out, aiming to knock over the bedside table. Just Something to connect with so she didn’t remain an open, wired nerve. 

She kept going, writhing on the floor and scraping the back of her legs on concrete, heaving and sobbing so violently she felt she might vomit.  
She didn’t even realize he was with her until she recognized the warmth of another body draped over hers. 

Her face was wet with tears and salt as she quaked in Joseph’s arms. Uncertainty. Confliction. Her gut knew what was happening but all she wanted was this poison out of her. All this anguish, the guilt, the fear. She ached for relief. 

For Emptiness.

Joseph said nothing as her sobs turned into shudders, hiccups. He simply held her, stroked her hair, even began rocking her back and forth. Reminded her of the deep sea fishing trip she’d taken with her father as a graduation present. Lying awake at night, staring up at the stars as the boat swayed with the waves. Feeling so lost and yet so at home under the cosmos. 

Adrift at sea. 

Rook noted that she was uncuffed now, but it mattered little. She was a prisoner of the mind. Too broken in this moment to fight against her warden’s tenderness that encaged her like steel bars. 

And she knew it.

They stayed this way for a long while. Silent. Warm. Until finally, Joseph placed his palms on either side of her face and lifted up her gaze to meet his.  
His eyes were always hollow, cold. A barren mirror. He always looked at her the same way- carving, loving, terrible.  
Leaning forward, he touched his forehead to hers and the warmth of his breath made her stomach twist but she didn’t recoil. 

Thankfully, it only lasted a few moments longer before he withdrew. He studied her once more, his eyes half lidded as he brushed hair from her face. Seemed to be considering something.

The cuffs were back on. Joseph went to fetch a glass of water.


	2. Ecclesiastes 4:9-11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short but I still have more planned >:)

He wanted to be loved again. 

Joseph had survived so much, endured years upon years of suffering. He’d starved for love- from his parents, his siblings, his peers, his wife. Never enough. Always hungry, never filled. 

That hollow feeling followed him for a lifetime until he found God. Found _himself_ in the clarity. Then he’d found John. Jacob. Faith. Then all his children followed, all wanting exactly as he did- to be loved. To find those who cared, someone, anyone who would meet their eyes and tell them “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

So he’d been sated. That ever-ebbing need to feed had been fed by those around him. Those wholly devoted to him, him, _him alone._

Alone.

But now he could feel it crawling into his chest once more- the dull ache, the loneliness that bloomed like flowering weeds. 

He conjured the image in his mind. One of the deputy smiling radiantly, reaching out to embrace him. He considered what her hand might feel like in his own. These visions… they reassured him of God’s presence, His plan. 

 

Two weeks in and she’d grown past the fear of him. She stopped trembling whenever he’d bathe her. In fact, she began lifting her arms, tilting back just so. Assisting.  
She didn’t bother to hide herself, either. And why should she? Joseph had no ill intentions. He’d made that clear. 

In fact, this was the most compliant he’d ever seen her. They’d both grown used to the daily routine, the rhythm. One might almost think her spirit broken.  
Joseph knew better.

There was no softness to her. The fear was gone, but the heat, the wrath remained. In fact, she was becoming increasingly bold with him.

“I want the white beans today.” 

The sound of her voice almost startled Joseph. It wasn’t the first time she’d spoken since the collapse, but it was the first time unprodded by a question from him. 

Progress.

He hid his smile behind a copy of _My Side of the Mountain,_ amused. 

“White beans it’ll be.” He answered coolly, not sparing her a glance. 

An hour passed. It was an easy meal to prepare. He kneeled down by the foot of the bed, already spooning up some for her to take a bite. 

“Joseph.” 

He looked up, once again surprised. This time by the sound of his name on her tongue. Her voice was firm but with a note of gentle pleading that made her next words crack in the middle. 

“I wanna feed myself.” 

They stared at one another. Joseph’s cold blues flicked over every inch of her face for even a twitch that would betray her true intent to him. But she just met his gaze, eyes- perhaps for the first time- utterly sincere.

He let the silence sit a moment longer before reaching into his back pocket. He slipped the silver key into the cuffs and found himself relishing her tiny, relieved sigh as the _click!_ slackened the constraint. She immediately brought her hands up, rubbing the pinkened skin on her wrists. 

Joseph studied her once more. Then handed off the bowl to her. He noted a glimmer that brightened her eyes as she began eating.  
He liked being part of the reason it was there. 

 

*****

 

_Back, right pocket._

_Reached for it with the right hand. Swapped the bowl to the left. Rosary beads clicked against the glass._

_Yes. Definitely the right pocket._

Rook shifted her arms, trying to find that one position that’d carried her to sleep the past weeks of sleeping on the concrete floor, only a blanket as a comfort. He must've wanted her close, but clearly didn't trust her enough to share a bed with him. She would've been grateful of that distance if it didn't result in a near constant crick in her neck. 

She lay there, wide awake, having been roused awake by Joseph's unconscious murmuring. Couldn't even shut his trap in his sleep. 

It was fine. This gave her more time to think out from under his smothering presence.

The key wasn’t the most important part. Even if she did manage to steal it, Joseph would know. Even if she did free herself, what then? She had no qualms with killing him. The question was if she could. Dutch’s armory was locked. No telling where _that_ key was. Sure, she could strangle him with her bare hands but it wasn’t sure fire. 

Rook needed sure fire. 

She needed one shot to a soft underbelly.

He was getting sloppy. Two days prior, he’d forgotten to shackle her to the pipe while he bathed her. She’d fantasized about doing a little baptizing of her own- hooking the cuffs about his neck, pulling his face down into the water. 

Didn’t feel like the right time. Being naked didn’t help.

 _What happens when he dies?_ She permitted herself to think. 

She hated him. She _loathed_ him. 

But he was the only thing keeping this bunker from feeling like solitary confinement. She recalled, what felt like a lifetime ago, her college corrections class. Reading an article about the psychological effects of time in a hotbox on inmates. Insomnia, depression, hallucinations. Madness.

Better the Devil you know. 

That’s why she was still alive. That’s why Joseph dragged her down into this hole with him. So his sermons didn’t bounce off the empty walls. 

He’d told her so.

She was all he had. Which meant she finally had something to work with. 

She wouldn’t kill him. Wouldn’t try.

For now.


	3. Wayward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love soft boy Joseph but I think a lot of people forget he's a psychopath and, y'know, eye gouged a guy with his thumbs at the beginning of the game :/ 
> 
> i need more scary Joseph in my life

The first month passed and the cuffs came off for good. It was possible Joseph sensed her resignation- as he was apparently the clairvoyant type- and gifted her leave to move about freely. 

It was nice. As nice as it could be. All these new and familiar sensations- her bare feet padding down the hall, the soft pops and clicks of the record player as it sang, a bath where only her hands lingered on _her_ skin. 

Since her freedom from the cuffs, Rook slept in room clear across the shelter. It was a relief beyond all reliefs to lay down on a mattress again and she remembered very clearly whispering, “Thank the Lord”, to no one before barking out a bitter laugh.

 _Thank the Lord, my ass,_ she mused. But not out loud.

She tried to busy herself. Anything to keep her mind blank and tangled on menial tasks like organizing Dutch’s record collection, doing as many push ups as her body could manage. Anything to make being alone more bearable, to keep that desire for companionship at bay. 

It worked. 

Every now and then, she’d recall some bizarre anecdote Sharky recited to her, Pastor Jerome’s gentle smile, or the sweet chime of Grace’s laugh. And every now and then, Rook would drag her knuckles across the concrete walls until she’d painted it with streaks of red. 

Joseph was content to leave her be for most hours. He busied himself scribbling away in a children’s notebook he’d found, filling his empty room with the scratching of a pen and his mutterings. 

He’d cook dinner, enough for both of them. Rook would come when called, take her plate, and retire once more to her side of their little hole in the earth.   
It delighted her to be able to _walk out of the room_ whenever Joseph would try to speak with her. The Queen of the Cold Shoulder. 

For a while, they simply _were._

Nightmares were common place. 

Months into life after the Collapse, not even sleep could offer one sanctuary. For Rook, it was the same vision every night.

_She was on the mountain top. The stone face turned to ash and drifted like leaves on the wind. The sun was black, the moon had turned to blood, and Hope County burned. A charred elk stag stumbled down the street of Fall’s End until it crumbled apart into charcoal on the asphalt, whose tar bubbled like on a scorching summer day.  
The smells. Burning pine. Roasted flesh. Hands reached out for her, beckoning. She reached back, but when she grasped one the skin peeled off like wet paper and clung onto her palm. Familiar faces, covered with burns and blisters that morphed and burst with puss. Eyes melted out of their heads, meat dropped from bones like pulp and splattered onto the ground. _

_Joseph was there. God was with him. She felt their eyes on her. Then there were many. Millions and millions of eyes, as numerous as the stars, all stared down at the lone, Montana Deputy. The Lamb of Joseph. Now, it was her turn to be judged._

The same dream. Several nights at a time. For weeks it sought her out whenever she closed her eyes. 

One night, the vision proved to be too much. 

Joseph awoke with a start to the sound of glass shattering. 

He found her in the kitchen, sitting down, legs crossed, different brands of liquor bottles strewn around her. One hand held a Jack Daniels like a trophy, the other was busy picking up the shards of a water glass. 

Joseph shook his head, eyes closed as he let out a disappointed sigh. 

“What a sight you are. Look at yourself. Wallowing in sin to escape from sin.” Joseph’s voice was unlike the smooth and honeyed cadence he’d been using to try to placate her in weeks past. Here it was firm, exasperated. 

His patience had finally worn thin, it seemed. 

“Every time I reach out my hand, you bat it away. For what? This?”

“Mmhgh, fuck off..” Rook slurred, tossing another water glass at him. It barely made it two feet, but the momentum of her chuck caused her to flop forward, banging her head on the table leg. “Ow.”

Joseph shook his head.

“God has spared you, even after all you’ve done. I have spared you, over and over and over again. I’ve offered forgiveness, yet you run to a liquor cabinet to absolve you of your deeds.” 

Rook glanced up, eyes glazed over. It was then Joseph saw the wet on her face, her eyes puffed. Her body trembled as she took a shuddering inhale, blinking dumbly up at him.

_The wayward sheep finally had a broken leg._

The harsh glint in Joseph’s baby blues softened, the tightness of his jaw went lax. 

He spoke again, warmer.

“That poison bears no love for you…”

He bent down, less imposing, and scooted closer to her. She watched him, eyes half lidded. One of Joseph’s calloused hands came up to caress the back of her head and he was overjoyed to feel no resistance when he pulled her forward to touch foreheads. Her skin was hot on his own as he closed his eyes.

“I know what it’s like. Anything to make the pain stop, hm? Day in, day out, you’d chase relief for eternity if it would make the hurt vanish for a millisecond...” He pried the empty whiskey bottle from her fingers. 

“You won’t find it in this bottle.” He promised. “You won’t find it anywhere. Only through God can we--”

Rook’s body pushed forward into his, her arms coming up, hands cupping his jaw. He let out a soft sound of surprise when he felt chapped lips brush his own and immediately pulled back, reaching up to clasp her wrists in an iron vice. 

He stared, bewildered. Appalled, even. 

“What are you doing?”

Rook’s eyes fluttered shut as she grinned the brightest he’d ever seen her and she laughed- a haunted, hollow sound. 

“Whiskey’s always made me chase dick.” She slurred, giggling at the horrified expression on Joseph’s face at the confession. He was downright _scandalized._

Rook took this moment to swipe her tongue across her bottom lip, giving the man across from her one long, lecherous once over. 

“Wha’ssa matter? Ain’t used to this, are you, _Father?”_ She took gleeful notice of the way Joseph’s lip twitched when she uttered his title. “None of yer flock ever tried?”  
She leaned forward again and delighted when Joseph actually recoiled from her. His bright eyes flicked here, flicked there, once up to the ceiling, then back to to his trembling hands that stayed locked around Rook’s wrist like a new set of cuffs. 

She grinned, wider.

“Nah… you made up that celibacy rule so ya wouldn’t have to keep battin’ ‘em off yer dick, huh. C’mon. I’m not wearin’ _anythin’_ under this.” She nodded down to her t shirt and shorts.

“Stop it.” Joseph demanded in a furious whisper, ears, cheeks, and neck crimson. It was nice to see him completely off kilter. This was not a situation he’d readied himself for. Rook gave pause, studying him as his eyes remained locked down to their hands. 

“You… are vile.” He finally informed her. 

“I know it.” Rook cackled, bending down to softly stroke the back of his calloused knuckles with her lips, the tenderest of kisses. 

Then, _“Didn’t stop your baby brother from havin’ a taste.”_

Joseph’s face twisted, his mouth growing into a thin, hard pressed line. And then his hand was on the back of her neck, and she felt the world spinning as he hoisted her up. The next thing she recalled was the sound of water immediately followed by the shock of finding herself submerged face first into the bathtub. She struggled and reached up to grab a handful of dark, greying hair and _yanked down._ But that only rewarded her with the force on the back of her head shoving her face further into the ivory bottom of the tub. 

Finally, she was plucked out, a hacking, wheezing mess. But the water had cleared her head of some of the whiskey. Certainly cleared it enough to know it was time wrench an elbow backwards into Joseph’s mouth. 

He stumbled back, hissing and spitting blood before dunking her again. Rook thrashed her legs out, nailing him in the shin and thigh. Couldn’t seem to land the kill shot in the crotch. 

Joseph snatched her by the back of her shorts then and tossed the bottom half of her into the tub as well. A few more moments and he released her all together, stumbling backwards as his right leg gave. Rook erupted from the water, gagging and spitting and retching. When she was able to breathe again, she gripped the side of the tub, staring up at Joseph.

For a few moments, the only sound filling the bunker was the huffing and panting of the two as they studied one another, bloodshot eyes meeting Joseph’s cool blue. Both bodies were tense, sitting on a hair thin trigger and itching for the first wrong move from the other to go into round two. 

Finally, Rook rose up out of the water, her sopping wet shirt clinging to her form and she shivered from the chill. 

_“There you are.”_ She whispered.


	4. The Hem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally some fucking PDA in this fic and it only took us 4 chapters to get here. honestly there'd be a lot more if i weren't staying so true to these goddamn stubborn ass characters and their hatred for each other

They didn’t talk about that night, just like they never talked about anything. A glass floor. One crack in the façade and they would’ve fallen, been cut to ribbons on the way down. 

Rook did not drink again for a long while. Didn’t appreciate her inhibitions being jackhammered so low to the ground that she put moves onto the man she spent many a night dreaming of gutting with a buck knife. 

Didn’t appreciate that it felt good to kiss someone again, even for the briefest of seconds.

She thinks back. It hurts, but being here by herself hurts more. A dull ache in her chest that demands companionship- of any kind. 

_Dumbass monkey brain._

She thinks back to Sharky. Those were some fun nights. First time it was sloppy, drunken sex in the back of a stolen cult pick up. She can see the stars again, smell the beer on Sharky’s breath as it hits her neck over and over again in time with his enthusiastic thrusting. He says something stupid in that boyish, rough voice and it makes her laugh. 

He was always so good at that. 

The ache grew in her chest and she let the tears build. She found herself daydreaming, once again, that he’d gotten somewhere safe. He was with the others, all of her friends holed up together and looking after one another in one of the discarded prepper bunkers. 

_The Rye’s had their baby with them, making concrete walls as homey as they could for her. Grace and Jerome swapped war stories to keep their minds busy from the roar of the fires outside. Hurk complained on his ration size and argued futilely with Mary-May about extra helpings. Boomer kept everyone’s spirits up, nuzzling beside them when he sensed their fear, their dread._

_Their bunker was welcoming, comforting. They were frightened and worried about the future ahead of them, but they were alive. Alive and together.  
What Rook wouldn’t give to be with them right now. _

 

Joseph hadn’t bothered her since her drunken escapades that night and Rook truly wondered if he was afraid to suffer anymore sexual harassment by her hand. 

The space gave her time to think. She kicked around the idea for a few days. Hated herself for it. Hated every part of her biologically-wired social animal brain that begged her to _give in, give in, give in._

A craving for warmth undercut by a cold dread. Tender and hateful. Such had always been her relationship with Joseph, it seemed. 

He was lying in bed when she worked up the courage to open the heavy metal door. It’d been a while since she’d set foot in the room after the cuffs came off. Joseph had redecorated. Most signs of Dutch had been removed from the room- pictures, medals, plaques, newspaper clippings. Dutch’s posters had been taken down, replaced with pages of Joseph’s scrawling. Couldn’t remove that stubborn blood stain in the room’s center, though. 

Rook shivered as she stepped over it.

His back was to her. She eyed the Eden’s cross mapped over the slope of muscle that expanded as his chest did. Other than the hum of the pipes above Rook’s head, the only sound in the room was Joseph’s almost inaudible mumbling. Staring down at him, Rook realized she’d never really seen him sleep. She’d heard him from her spot cuffed to the bed rail. 

It was odd. 

She hated to admit it, but he looked… human. No monologues, no eyes that made her feel utterly and terribly devoured as they carved a hole in her.

No. Just the rasp of his breathing, the fluttering of his dark lashes. Seeing him like this made the next risk more appealing. 

Cautiously, she sat down on the mattress. Joseph immediately stirred awake at the creak of the springs and turned his body to look at her. Even having just roused from sleep, his half-lidded eyes were already trying to dig into her- to suss her out and know her. 

So warm and blue.

Neither said anything. Rook was the first to move, breaking that horrible gaze and bowing her head down. She willed her body forward until her head was under his jaw and one of her hands took Joseph’s to press it against the back of her neck. 

She felt his resistance at first, the stiffness in his muscles, as if he couldn’t believe what was being asked of him. This wasn’t an act of submission. Not from Rook. No, this was _permission._

After that realization, she could feel the dreadful warmth radiating from Joseph as she laid down, her arms draping around his middle. She tried not to think about how validated he must’ve felt, how he must’ve been silently reveling in this victory- the creature that’d fought so hard against him and his God had finally caved in and crawled to his bedside seeking his Love. 

That’s not what this was but she could feel his gentle smile on the top of her hair. She mentally clubbed to death the urge to bite his left ear off.

Instead, she focused on the solid human form against her and let her eyes flutter shut. She could feel him breathing, hear the drum of his heart beat in time with her own- both quick, both fluttering. 

_I’m real. We’re real. Warm and alive. Full of blood._

Here she was, throat laid bare under the arm of a deranged, murderous lunatic and already she felt the tension draining out of her when the warmth of his sigh traveled down her neck. 

_This is fucked. This is fucked. Fucked, fucked, fucked._

A calloused hand ran through her hair and she immediately conjured Sharky in bed with her. Replaced the scent of musk and spice with that of gasoline and weed. Imagined the beginnings of a beer gut instead of the lean, scarred muscle that pressed firmly against her own stomach. 

Imagined it was another place, another time. 

Joseph was graceful enough not to utter a single word the entire time. He just held her close, acted as a warm, welcoming body for her to anchor onto until she fell asleep.  
She vaguely remembered, just as the sand weighed heavy over her eyes and just as she began to drift away, murmuring something against Joseph’s neck. 

He whispered something back and, though she couldn’t recall what, she remembered the dreadful shiver that chased up her spine at the sensation of his chapped lips on her cheek.

For the first time in a long while, the ghosts of Hope County didn’t follow her into her dreams.


	5. Bitter Psalms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3c finally... some action

Joseph had grown accustomed to these rituals of hers.

Touch, embrace, hiss, spit, withdraw, return- rinse and repeat. They were his rising and setting sun now- time spinning on her wheel. She was so resistant, so rigid. She needed to convince herself that she didn’t want what Joseph had offered her so many times. She reeked of pride even still. 

It was fulfilling- being needed again. Touching was essential to connection. It tethered the bodies as well as the souls together. Helped remind them both that they were still alive, truly alive, after all others had vanished as ashes on the radiated wind. 

 

“Did you always know it was me?” She whispered to him from the corner of his bed one fateful night. She’d been drinking again. Must’ve stashed a bottle away for herself before Joseph hid the rest.

Joseph sat up. She never wanted to talk about such things with him.

“I knew something was coming.” He spoke softly, his eyes locked somewhere distant. “When you arrived that night, I knew what you were meant to do. I didn’t know… how or what you would _take_ from me…. I didn’t know why you’d been chosen as I had been, but God showed me that our fates were tied with an invulnerable cord.”

She was quiet. Contemplating perhaps. Joseph continued.

“I’ve had plenty of time. I’ve prayed and meditated... I’ve had time to hate you and forgive you. And now I see clearer. It was always meant to be the two of us.”  
He glanced over to her, gauging her reaction. She didn’t seem shocked. In fact, she gave him a twisted grin.

“Only the two of us?” Her voice lilted upward, sing song. Mocking.

Joseph went quiet then. They dwelled in the silence for a time, both unmoving. 

“I’d do it all again.” Her voice was low, raw. “I wouldn’t take back a single bullet. I’d kill every single one of your children again with my bare hands. I would strangle John in that field again, drown Faith in the river, gut Jacob on the mountain top. If all it got me was back here in this hole with you forever, I’d do it again without a second thought.”

She stood, and though Joseph didn’t look upon her he could feel the heat of her glare on his skin.

“I know.” He whispered. 

“Just tell me you hate me. Tell me the truth for once.”

“I love you as God himself loves you. He knows you are wretched. I know it.” Joseph’s voice was simmering, and he finally looked up to lock eyes with the venomous woman. “…But we also know what you will become.”

She stared right back. Then her eyes closed and she bent her face down into the palm of her hand, body suddenly trembling. Joseph heard her take a long, shaky breath.   
Then the mattress shifted. She crawled to him and he did not resist when she cupped her hands behind his head, when she pulled him in to touch their foreheads together. It was a gentle gesture but the loathing flowed from her like a gutter flooded by rain water. 

Then their noses were touching. Her breath was hot on his lips and almost unconsciously Joseph’s parted them. 

Ivory teeth scraped his bottom lip and the sensation made him jolt. It was replaced and soothed by the deputy’s mouth enveloping his own. They were still at first, perhaps both terrified to continue onward but too starved for the love of a body to stop all together.

Then she pressed into him, body dancing to an unheard rhythm as she took the lead. Eventually, Joseph pulled back a hair’s breath, if only for some air.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was trying to say when he finally spoke. 

“I think--”

“Don’t—Don’t talk.” She rasped, sliding her hands down his torso, riding the slopes of muscle until the came to rest on his slim hips. Joseph felt his heart beat pick up significantly, the pounding of blood reaching his ears and muffling sound about them. He watched her, bright eyes half lidded as she loomed over him.

Surprisingly gentle, she kissed him, fingers brushing through his hair and pulling him closer. He felt her shaky exhale on his skin, felt her quake as she settled onto his lap. Still she kissed him. Several moments were dedicated just to getting to know one another in this way, taking time to settle into the role of a lover, to forget the animosity and cherish a gentle touch. 

Joseph had almost forgotten how to kiss. It’d been so long. But the deputy was insistent, ever-patient as she set a rhythm for them both. She nudged him with her tongue, wanted to taste inside him and Joseph parted his lips once more to let her. 

Hot and wet, writhing in his mouth. He choked on the moan that rose up from his chest, but other than that complied silently, until her hips rolled down into his, and then he gave a soft gasp as a long forgotten thrill spider webbed through him. 

Then she was moving him onto his back and it was all a haze. At one point, Joseph remembered fixating his gaze on a singular crack in the ceiling. The thought crossed his mind of a cave in, stone giving way to black earth to crush and smother the both of them. Ashes in their mouths. 

They didn’t even remove the clothes they were wearing. All Joseph truly recalled from the brief but intense encounter was the waves of pressure and pleasure as she writhed against him, pushing him down into the mattress and pressing herself on top his thigh over and over again. 

She wanted more of him but she would not let herself have it. Joseph was a touch grateful. He’d nearly forgotten what to do.

She finished quietly, only a soft groan to indicate that anything had happened at all. Shuddering in her end, she laid her head to his chest, breath ragged. Joseph laid perfectly still, evidence of his weakness pressing against her stomach, every pulsation a declaration of the lust that’d grown to plague him like a river of blood. 

The deputy sat up and stumbled back onto her feet. She left Joseph there, legs spread and aching.


End file.
